PRimage ask: ‘Is Brown living on borrowed time?’

Judy Viitanen and PRimage are interested to observe that after a summer of intense but covert plotting, factions of the Labour Party have broken cover and, in a highly orchestrated assault, demanded that their leader face a re-election contest this autumn. Former minister Fiona Mactaggart has become the latest Labour MP to openly call for a leadership contest. These persistent and pernicious machinations prompts us to ponder just how long Brown can withstand, or ignore these vociferous calls for a leadership contest. In our opinion, these negative and consistent comments on his leadership and performance are proving extremely damaging. What’s your view?

From what we understand, the Prime Minister has been put on warning by senior Labour figures that he has only a matter of weeks to save his troubled premiership or face a leadership challenge. Although it appears that some of Brown’s senior colleagues say privately they are holding their tongues for now, having agreed that the prime minister should be given time to show he can lead Labour out of its malaise at next week’s party conference in Manchester.

We are somewhat cynical of the recent press reports suggesting that members of the cabinet have categorically refused to join calls from the backbenches for a Labour party leadership contest to challenge the PM; we are cynical too that the Foreign Secretary David Miliband – tipped as a future Labour leader – has rejected calls for Gordon Brown to face a party leadership contest ….. our comment is ‘well, he would say that wouldn’t he!’. The view of Judy Viitanen and the PRimage team is that Gordon Brown will find it difficult to stonewall the growing mutiny in Labour ranks — and that the PM is living on ‘borrowed time!’ …… Watch this space!